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Japan's Reaction to the Vancouver Riot of 1907 MASAKO UNO

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Japan's Reaction to the Vancouver Riot of 1907 MASAKO UNO Japan's Reaction to the Vancouver Riot of 1907 MASAKO UNO On 7 September 1907 a mob of about 1,000 attacked the Chinese quar­ ter and the Japanese section in Vancouver, British Columbia. Originally a parade and a mass meeting were planned by the Asiatic Exclusion League1 in order to draw the attention of the federal government to the seriousness of local sentiment against the continuous flow of Japanese immigration to the western ports of Canada. Part of the crowd that had gathered for the meeting turned into an uncontrollable mob, leading to a disturbance that has been generally known as the Vancouver Riot.2 The riot itself was not of great scale and there was no burning or plun­ dering or lynching. It was over in one night, leaving only two casualties. The incident, however, had important consequences not only for the federal government of Canada but also for the government of Japan. After the riot, under the heavy pressure of anti-Japanese feelings in British Columbia, the Canadian government could not maintain its firm stand on Japanese immigration and decided to send a mission to Japan to negotiate restriction of Japanese immigrants. The Japanese govern­ ment unwillingly accepted the proposal of the Canadian government. The history of Japanese immigration into Canada3 can be divided into 1 The Asiatic Exclusion League was an organization devoted to the exclusion of Asia­ tics in general from Canada and the United States. It was first organized in San Francisco in May 1905 as "the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League." The Asiatic Exclusion League in Vancouver was formed 12 August 1907. 2 Much research has been done on the causes of the Vancouver Riot. See, in par­ ticular, Howard H. Sugimoto, Japanese Immigration, the Vancouver Riots and Canadian Diplomacy (New York: Arno Press, 1978) and "The Vancouver Riot and Its International Significance," Pacific Northwest Quarterly 64(4) (1973) 1163-74. 3 Major works on the history of Japanese immigrants in Canada are: Ken Adachi, The Enemy That Never Was (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1976); W. Peter Ward, White Canada Forever (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1978); and Charles H. Young, et al., The Japanese Canadians (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1939). There are also works on this subject in Japanese such as: Mitsuru Shimpo, Ishi o Mote Owaruru Gotoku (As Though Driven Away with Stones) (Toronto: Tairiku-Jiho Sha, 1975); anc^ Tairiku-Jiho Sha, Canada Dôbô Hatten Shi (A History of Fellow Countrymen in Canada) (Vancouver: Tairiku- Jiho Sha, 1909, 1917, 1924). 28 BC STUDIES, no. 60, Winter 1983-84 Japan's Reaction to the Vancouver Riot 29 four periods. The first is from the time of the first Japanese immigrant arriving in British Columbia in 1877 to the Lemieux Agreement in 1908, with two great peaks in 1899-1900 and in 1906-1907. During this period, as the number of Japanese immigrants increased, an anti- Japanese movement arose and finally diplomatic agreements were reached with Japan to restrict the number of immigrants to Canada. During the second period, between the Lemieux Agreement and the outbreak of World War II, Japanese immigrants began to be assimilated into Cana­ dian society; ironically, as a consequence of this fact, discrimination against them became more intense than before. The third period is that of evacuation, during and after the war (until 1949), which saw dis­ crimination by the Canadian public reaching its peak. In the fourth period, from 1950 till the present time, Japanese-Canadians gained full rights as citizens of Canada. In such a history of Japanese immigrants in Canada, the Vancouver Riot proved an incentive to change in both Canadian policy toward Japanese immigrants and in Japanese policy toward emigration to Canada. At the same time, this incident was important in the sense that it brought about the development of a new international relationship, showing the expectations of each country involved — not only Canada and Japan but also the United States and Great Britain, This paper focuses on how the government and the public of Japan saw and reacted to the Vancouver Riot of 1907, and how the emigration policy of Japan changed after the riot. BACKGROUND Japanese Emigration Policy Early in the Meiji Era After the Japanese government issued permission to travel abroad in 1866, a number of people emigrated overseas: 42 for Guam and 153 for Hawaii in 1868, and 40 for California in 1869.4 ^so some requests came from nations overseas asking the Japanese government to recruit and send emigrants to them; Holland needed soldiers and Russia wanted some craftsmen from Japan in 1871, and Australia wanted farmers in 1876.5 The Japanese government, however, refused all these proposals. 4 Toraji Iriye, Hôjin Kaigai Hatten Shi (A History of Japanese Expansion Overseas) (Tokyo: Hara Shobo, 1981 [1942]), pp. 1-53. Naomasa Oshimoto, "Imin Toriatsu- kai Kikan no Hensen" (Transition of Agencies Dealing with Emigrants), Kaigai Ijû Jigyo Dan Jûnen Shi (A Ten-Year History of Japan International Cooperation Agency) Tokyo: JICA, 1973), p. 4. 5 Oshimoto, ibid. 30 BG STUDIES Thus, though there is no accurate record on emigrants until 1878, the number of emigrants would have been negligible. One reason the government was not interested in sending people out to other nations arose from the fact that it was too occupied in dealing with all the internal problems after the Meiji Restoration (1868) to consider emigration seriously. The Meiji government concentrated its efforts on the colonization of Hokkaido, the northern island of Japan, encouraging the ex-Samurai class, who had lost their status at the Resto­ ration of 1868, to migrate and bring the land under cultivation there. The government gave the migrants every kind of aid and protection. This policy was motivated by both political and economic necessities. Politically, settlement in Hokkaido had strategic importance in checking the southward thrust of Russian expansion. At the same time, it was considered to be an effective relief measure for the ruined ex-Samurai class. The economic motivation of the policy was that by sending any number of people, it was expected that Japan's increasing population pressure would be lessened, though the actual effect was not of great significance. Another reason that the government was not interested in emigration in the early Meiji Era may have been that it was sensitive to the condi­ tion of immigrant labourers on Hawaii's sugar plantations. Those who emigrated to Hawaii in 1868, without being able to gain the permission of the new government, were treated like slaves, and the Japanese govern­ ment had to send an official to protest to the Hawaii government.6 The government was also informed about what was happening to Chinese labourers on Hawaii's sugar plantation. In 1884 the Japanese government signed a convention with the Hawaii government Whereby the sugar plantation owners in Hawaii were permitted to import Japanese labourers under contract between 1885 and 1894, and soon after that a law to permit general emigration of labourers was enacted. Thus overseas migration began with those 943 farmers as government-sponsored emigrants to Hawaii. The fact that they were chosen from among 28,000 applicants7 shows that the im­ poverished conditions of rural communities pushed the farmers to hope for a better life abroad. They were the first of over 29,000 to enter Hawaii on three-year contracts between 1885 an(^ *894, and the first of a total of 178,927 who entered Hawaii before 1908. They were also the « Ibid. 7 "Nippon-Jinmin Hawaii-Koku e Dekasegi Ikken" (On Working Away from Home in Hawaii), Documents of the Foreign Relations Archives. Japan's Reaction to the Vancouver Riot 31 vanguard of emigration to the United States, Canada and South Amer­ ica, where 91,740 Japanese went before 1908. Also some of those who went to Hawaii eventually came to Canada, and the fact that their number increased particularly in 1906 and 1907 was to become one of the causes of the Vancouver Riot. Even during the period of ten years when it sponsored the emigrants to Hawaii based on the convention it had agreed on with the govern­ ment of Hawaii, the Japanese government did not have a policy to encourage emigration. What it did was to station some officials in Hawaii who helped the emigrant labourers in sending money back home. This shows again that, in spite of the fact that the general public was influ­ enced by the views of people who advocated emigration based on expan­ sionist theory,8 the Meiji government was rather negative about emigra­ tion in general.9 Consequently during the Meiji Era there was no specific policy regarding emigration. There was not even a section in the govern­ ment to deal with those who desired to emigrate overseas, until Takeaki Enomoto, who had been an advocate of sending Japanese people to various parts of the world as a policy of overseas expansion, established an Emigration Section in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs while he was the Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1891 to 1892. But after he resigned from the post, the section was abolished before achieving much.10 During this period when the government had no specific policy on emigration, showing its passiveness toward emigration overseas, emigra­ tion companies mushroomed.11 These companies worked as agencies in recruiting those who wanted to emigrate, in clearing the process of emi- 8 For example: Takeaki Enomoto, Nanyô-tû Baishû Ron (On Purchasing the Islands of the South Seas) (1876) ; Yukichi Fukuzawa, Hinpu Ron (On Wealth and Pov­ erty) (1884) ; and Shigetaka Shiga, Nanyd Jiji (Affairs on the South Sea Islands) (1887).
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